


An Infernal Affliction

by OpusEsset



Category: Ghost (Sweden Band)
Genre: Blood, Body Horror, Demons, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Human/Monster Romance, Monsterfucking, Oral Sex, Rough Sex, angst maybe?, demon papa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-02 00:00:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17877278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpusEsset/pseuds/OpusEsset
Summary: A Sister of Sin encounters Papa Emeritus during a particularly.... unsettling period.





	An Infernal Affliction

His Unholy Eminence had not been seen in some days.  
Usually, this worried no-one. The clergy were used to him disappearing to the nearest city for a night or two, sometimes returning with some lost soul ready to devote themself to the church.  
This was different.  
Sister Fidelea had always been charged with taking care of his chambers when he was absent. It was only sensible given that she was a lot closer to the Infernal Father than many others. She could be trusted, he had told Sister Imperator. He liked having her around. That, of course, was _very_ much an understatement.   
He hadn't been seen for two days when Sister Fidelea went to his rooms. She liked to give him a small grace period, just in case.  
His quarters were in their own wing, far enough that the burbling of the church's day-to-day happenings faded into a gentle hum as she hastened down the corridor.  
Her footfalls rang against the cold flagstone, answered by dim echoes in her wake.  
The door to his quarters slid into view.  
Singing absently to herself, she pulled a small key from her belt and went to unlock the door.  
She enjoyed looking after his rooms. Though she was too loyal an assistant to search through his things, it was always interesting to see what he was working on before the call of leisure became irresistible.  
Sometimes sheet music, scattered on various surfaces. Sometimes letters or notes, written in his sloping graceful hand. Sometimes, though rarely, sketches. She remembered the way her heart had seemed to skip a beat when she came across a small  but very detailed sketch of her own face amongst the many scribbles and drafts.  
She half-smiled, vaguely hoping he had been sketching. She loved seeing how he saw the world.  
  
A  faint sound stopped her. A low moan from within. She frowned. So Papa was here after all. He would usually alert her when he returned, with a note or message, sometimes visiting her room in person, to the undisguised delight and jealousy of the other sisters. But his attentions were only for her.  
So why had he not told her he was back? Where had he gone?  
She replaced the key in her pocket. Maybe he was asleep. Perhaps it was a long trip. She would teasingly chide him a little for this later.  
The sister turned to leave, when another moaning sound came from within. Louder, pained.  
Her heart dropped slightly in her chest. Gently, she tapped the door.  
'Your Eminence?'  
Another moan came from within, an unwilling answer.  
'Your eminence, are you all right?'  
There was a clattering, smashing sound as something was pushed to the floor.  
'Oh, sweet Lucifer-'  
She scrabbled for the key, her shaking hands making it impossible to unlock the door.  
'NO.'  
His voice, rough and deep. He spoke, laboured between panting breaths.  
'Sister Fidelea. I  _forbid_ you to come in.'  
She blinked, her hand stopping the key mid-turn.  
He had never forbidden her anything. He had never before spoken to her like this. Here he was, she thought, stumbling around sick as a dog, and his pride and arrogance would deny him the help he so clearly needed?  
'You will return to your halls immediately. Or- or else.' She scoffed slightly. 'Was that a threat?' she retorted. 'It may well be.' he growled back.  
There was a heaving, gagging sound, before the unmistakable thick splattering of vomit on the ground.  
'Oh, that's it, I'm coming in, you're too ill to be alone.' This was a very old building. The heavy wooden door was temperamental at the best of times, and its misbehaving now, coupled with Papa's dramatics, was truly irritating her.  
'Sister, I FORBID YOU-' More heaving.  
'For hell's sake, it's only me, Papa, I'm sure I've seen you in worse states after rituals-'  
The lock turned with a heavy clunk and she shoved open the door, cursing under her breath.  
'- so dramatic, throwing up everywhere and won't even let me in, fucking d-'

The scene that met her eyes left her wordless in shock.  
The darkened room was a wreck. Papers everywhere, the curtains drawn, some hanging from their rails, the bedsheets spread in a twisted mass on the floor. A tray which had previously held some glasses and a crystal decanter lay in pieces on the floor, and the sister guessed that this was what she had heard smashing earlier. The burgundy liquid from the decanter was slowly winding its way towards her through the gaps in the flagstone floor, gleaming between sparkling shards of glass. Its scent, once so inviting and warm, seemed heavy and cloying now. Her eyes followed the trail back into the gloom. Another smell reached her, mingled with the first. Sour, acrid. She took a hesitant step. She couldn't see his Eminence in the darkness.  
Another step.  
The door creaked shut behind her. She jumped and turned. As she did, a small movement caught her eye, beside the bed on the other side of the room.  
'Papa?'  
She approached slowly. The acidic smell grew stronger, and she realised, with a turn of her stomach, that a puddle of oily black bile was mixing with the wine on the floor.  
'Papa, are you okay?'  
She kept her distance. Papa Emeritus, dressed in his ceremonial robes, was bent double, one gloved hand clutching the bedpost. His face was hidden from her behind the long sleeve, but his hair was dishevelled and lank. He was groaning again.  
'Papa, please. Speak to me. What do you need, are you okay? Can I help y-'  
'GET. AWAY. FROM ME.'  
Sister Fidelea had taken a half-step forward to touch his shoulder but now she shrank back.His voice was deep and raw. Nothing like the mellifluous sound she was used to. Her breath caught in her throat, stung by his dismissal. His arm was trembling, and had he not been wearing his nailed gloves she suspected his knuckles would have been white from how tightly he was clutching the bedpost. She tried not to let her voice show the hurt and concern seeping through her.  
'Papa, please. You're very sick. Let me help you.'  
The sister put a tentative hand on his shoulder. He flinched as if burned by her touch, staggering away from her. His legs gave out beneath him and he fell to his hands and knees.  
'Oh, hell, Papa...' She slowly came around and knelt before him. His head hung low, dark locks obscuring his face. His breath came pained and laboured.  
'Sister Fidelea... Please.... Please just go. You can't be here for this. You can't... See this.'  
It was a plea more than a threat. He seemed close to tears, emotion trembling that strained, hoarse voice. His body continued to shake.  
'Papa... It's okay. You're going to be fine.'  
Gently, she put her hand on top of his. It balled into a fist beneath her touch. He laughed thinly, still keeping his head down.  
'Oh, my _dear_ Sister...Will I? Will I really?'  
'...What are you saying? Of co-'  
Her voice snapped off mid sentence.He had looked up and met her eyes finally.His face had changed under its paint. His features were sharper, more beast-like. His nose was flatter, his brow pronounced and heavy. His ears seemed to be pointed, and his canines were noticeably longer and obscenely sharp, his mouth and chin was slick with a foul combination of black bile and his own scarlet blood.The black edges of his makeup seemed to be bleeding out into the skin of his face and neck, dying it an inky black. She felt the colour draining from her own face.  
He looked, for want of a better word, demonic, thought Sister Fidelea.  
His eyes were boring into her, his expression unreadable. Her hand was still on his, and she realised with numb horror that he wasn't wearing his gloves. The black, leathery texture was his skin. The yellow claws were his too.  
'... Oh- Oh fuck...Papa... What's happening to you?'  
She couldn't stop her hands - or voice - from shaking. Instinctively, she pulled her hand away from him. He closed his eyes and looked away again.  
'It's part of the deal, sister. You lead the church, you offer your soul.. And your body. And part of it is this. This... Other form. Every few years it happens. Punishment, I suppose. I usually take my leave... Go somewhere... far away and wait it out. Alone. But it took me by surprise today. It- it came early. I wasn't ready.' Sister Fidelea felt her stomach, already clenched, turn even further. She felt tears beginning to swell in her eyes, her throat constricted with hurt and fear.  
  
He leaned back and stood, slowly. The gagging and trembling seemed to have subsided for the moment. A deep, shaky breath.  
'Sister. I think it would be better if you left. Now. And told no-one what you have seen here.'  
'Why didn't you tell me?'  
She didn't mean to blurt it out. His eyes had been fixed on the floor, but now they snapped up to her. His lip curled, showing one of those terrible fangs, filmed with blood and slime. He spoke quietly, but coldly.  
'And what, pray, would I have told you?'  
'I- I don't know-'  
'How _could_ I tell you, knowing you'd look at me the way you do now?'  
She blinked, and the tears began to roll down her white cheeks.

His voice softened.  
'The last thing I wanted to do was scare you. I didn't want you to think I would hurt you, or that I was dangerous, that it wasn't... Me in here. Do you understand?'  
She swallowed hard, but nodded. Slowly, he brought a hand up, and she thought he might cradle her cheek as he had many times before. But those claws, reaching towards her face....  
Unintentionally, she recoiled, and he froze. Slowly, he drew back, eyes pressed shut.  
She cursed herself silently for not holding her nerve. He turned away from her.  
'I see now that my suspicions were correct. I ask you again. Leave now and forget what you have seen here. Inform Sister Imperator that my... Problem has returned. I will arrange for you to have new duties with another senior member of the Clergy if you wish. I'm sure the Cardinal might appreciate your company.'  
She heard him inhale sharply, followed by a sickening snap. When he spoke again, it was through gritted teeth.  
'I would go now, sister. This is not something I want you to see.'  
For a moment, Sister Fidelea considered it as she stood. She considered obeying. Transferring to the service of the much more accessible Cardinal Copia. Ignoring everything she had seen here.Leaving him alone, in pain and terror as he became... something else.  
She couldn't.  
She just couldn't.  
She watched as he slowly bent over and gasped in pain. Hadn't she been much the same when they met? She looked down and clenched her fists.  
'No.'  
His head jerked toward her.  
'I'm not letting you do this alone. I'm not leaving you.'  
The wretched shape before her sagged slightly.  
'Sister...'  
It was more of a growl. A crunching sound, followed by another snap. He grunted, and she could hear more of the thick bile slapping the floor.  
'Leave. Now.' 'I will not.' 'Please... You do not need to see this. For your own sake. Please just go.'  
His tone startled her. It wasn't commanding, nor threatening. It was pleading. Broken.  
'I will _not_.'  
He looked back up at her. Under the alien changes in his features, his expression was desperate. She stood her ground.  
'I'm going to look after you.'  
'Stupid, foolish girl. You don't understand what you-' A hideous cracking sound and Papa Emeritus' tirade was sharply cut off by a scream of agony. He was flung backwards by the force of his spasm, into the darkest corner of the room. She took a step to follow him.  
'Papa!-' 'NO.'  
His voice was deeper still, and seemed to reverberate with some horrible, monstrous timbre. His eyes glowed in the gloom, and they were fixed desperately on her own.  
'Stay. Away. Please. Don't watch-' Sister Fidelea backed away, eyes fixed on the writhing mass of robes. The moonlight, peering obscenely through a gap in the curtains, silhouetted some of him, and she watched in horror as his body twisted and contorted. Her legs suddenly felt like rubber beneath her, and she collapsed to the ground, edging backwards still, until she felt the cold stone of the far wall creep up against her back.  
A biting pain in her hand told her she had found some of the broken crystal on the way.The screaming from the corner of the room dropped to a pained, animalistic bellowing, unlike anything she had heard before. The noise and intense spasming movements became too much. The air in the room seemed to become thinner.  
She had her hands pressed to her mouth, tears streaming in pure terror. _What was he becoming?_  
She eyed the door.  
_But you said you would stay_ , a small voice inside her said.  
But if he was turning into some wild animal...  
A tearing sound, and his Unholy Eminence's robes were flung across the room, torn at the seams, and hit the ground with a heavy _splat_ . A visceral, wet ripping had commenced, like raw meat being hungrily torn in two. The wild, painful bellowing continued. The wrecked chasuble, sodden with blood and bile, decided for her.  
She scrambled across the floor, not caring to be quiet or stealthy as the terrible shrieking and snapping drowned out any sound she could make. Reaching the door, she pulled ineffectively at the handle, her hands slick with blood. Cursing, she frantically dried it with the sleeve of her habit and tried again.  
It wouldn't move.  
Of course it wouldn't move.  
She knew this door was faulty, of course it WOULDN'T FUCKING OPEN-  
She pulled at it frantically, openly sobbing in desperation.  
'Come on come on come ON YOU STUPID FUCKING THING-'  
The doorknob came off in her hand.  
This was a very old building.  
'Oh, hell...'  
She sank to her knees numbly. Quietly, she began to pray. Blinding terror sat like a stone in her chest. She was going to die. And her Papa - or whatever was left of him - was going to be the one to do it.  
Suddenly, the wretched bellowing stopped. The transformation, it seemed, was complete. She stopped praying for a second to listen. Heavy panting. A low growling.  
She didn't dare look back. She pressed her eyes shut and continued her prayers with greater fervour, her hands locked together, her forehead pressed against the wood of the door.  
A shuffling sound. More growling breaths. A heavy step.  
It was coming. Oh, Satan, it was coming. She abandoned the prayers entirely, panic and hysteria taking over as she sobbed into her shaking, clasped hands.  
More slow steps. A coppery, burning smell.  
It was behind her.  
'Lea...'  
Her name, whispered in that terrible voice. She shrank away from the sound. It wasn't just that it was her name. It was what he called her when they were alone together, when their titles lay abandoned with their vestments.  
'Oh Satan, p-please just kill me, please don't torture me like this.'  
'Lea, please.'  
It moved in closer. Her breath snagged in her throat. It could only have been a few seconds. But for Sister Fidelea, it seemed like an eternity.  
A single claw touched her arm. She flinched, but didn't move, save for an unintentional shudder.  
' _Please_. I'm not going to hurt you.'  
One claw became five, a hand resting gently on her shoulder.  
'If I wanted to, I would have by now.'  
She couldn't turn around. She was frozen in place by fear. Slowly, her eyes opened, and she peered between her lashes at the warm weight on her shoulder.  
Long, dark talons, yellowing at the tip. Yet they weren't ripping at her. A hand, the skin a deep blue-black. Huge. And yet, it lay here, gently upon her.  
Another aching, still silence.  
'Papa?' she said, quietly.  
The thing behind her made a small noise, which could have been relief.  
She unclasped her hands, and tentatively, touched one of the giant claws. Her heart hammered as she did.  
It didn't move.  
Suddenly, she felt like she could breathe again.  
It wasn't going to kill her.  
The rumbling voice came again.  
'I don't want you to see me this way, Lea. I just wanted you to know. Even...like this, I would never hurt you. I will open the door for you, and you will go.'  
He lifted the hand from her shoulder, but suddenly she grabbed it.  
'Let me look at you.'  
Her tone was of steely conviction.  
There was a long moment of silence.  
'Lea...'  
'I've seen this much. I know what you are. Let me see you.'  
He sighed.  
'I suppose you have.'  
He pulled his hand back, and she heard him take a step or two backwards.  
Shakily, she stood, still with her back to him.  
Please, she thought to herself. Please don't scream.  
She took one deep breath. And turned.  
  
She didn't scream. She opened her mouth, but no sound came. He was bent over slightly before her, but standing straight he would tower over her by a good two feet. His legs were bent back on themselves like that of a goat or a lion, ending in long, sinewy paw-like feet. His naked torso and arms were lean and muscled, the skin almost scaly. Huge slits ran at random up and down his body, as if his skin had split to accommodate this hulking new form. The flesh beneath it looked raw and angry. But even as she watched, the scars were healing over, leaving only raised welts in the blue-black surface. His head was bowed, eyes shut. Pointed ears poked out from his hair, the same jet-black as it always was, but longer and coarser. Two massive, charcoal-grey horns spiralled up and back from his skull, gleaming with blood from their recent eruption. His face was much the same as she had seen earlier: huge, heavy brow, deep-set eyes. His skull paint seemed to be a part of him, pigmentation rather than makeup. The white was a little less solid, cracks of black breaking it up here and there. His mouth was open slightly, and she glimpsed rows of huge, snaggled fangs. A flicking movement behind him showed her a long, barbed tail.  
He was horrifying.  
This giant demon stood before her, still smeared with blood and black slime. Completely still, head bowed.  
Fearing her.  
Fearing her rejection.  
She took a step closer to him. His eyes opened, and she saw that both irises were white. He stared at her, dreading her reaction.  
'Fucking hell...' She breathed.

There was a long, silent moment as they regarded each other in the gloom. She blinked back tears.Trembling, she took another tiny step, and reached for his huge arm. He hesitated, then slowly extended it, flinching slightly as her fingers brushed his skin. It was cooler than her own.  
'Does it hurt?'  
He nodded. 'Intensely.' She looked up. His face was impassive and expressionless, but his eyes, watching her every move, betrayed him. Even in this huge, unfamiliar body, he was as terrified as she was. How had he done this so many times before, and always alone?  
Her head dropped.  
'Papa, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.'  
His eyes widened, alarmed by her reaction.  
'You're... Sorry?'  
She nodded, close to tears yet again. 'I'm sorry I wasn't there before. How did you do this alone?' She took the bloody, clawed hand and pressed it to her lips, as she had kissed his gloved hand a thousand times before. The gesture threw him, and he froze.  
This was not what he had expected.  
The last time this had happened, that he had shown this form to another, she had been horrified. She had fled the church that night, unable to even look at him. He stared down at Sister Fidelea. She felt his gaze and looked up. A paragon of shining, raw emotion.  A smear of his blood was upon her lips, the only colour in her drained, pale face. He crouched down so that his face was level with hers.  
She placed a shaking hand on his cheek, studying him. The features were warped, but his eyes were undoubtedly the same. 'It's still you,' she whispered.  
The demon Papa pressed his eyes closed for a second. He was unable to cry in this form, but if it was possible, he would have.  
He brushed some hair, stiff with drying blood, from her face, and rested his hand at her cheek, mirroring her actions. This time, she did not flinch away. He spoke quietly, but with the dry slyness she was used to.  
'I do not think you understand the magnitude of your actions, sister.'  
She smiled slightly, and shook her head.  
'No, I don't.'  
And to their combined shock, she leaned in and kissed him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> My first piece of writing in a very long time. I just love human/monster relationships, particularly with the added angst of a horrific transformation, and this seemed like an interesting dynamic for a character like Papa III. There will be gratuitous amounts of smut at some point.  
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
